Review: ‘Disneyland 50th Anniversary — Vintage Mickey’

Containing no extras, Disney's "Vintage Mickey" is a simple affair, with nine fine shorts from the main mouse. Funnier and cuter than a lot of the talking-animal product put forth today, there are indeed reasons to admire this one-off, but it still smacks a little of repackaging purely for profit's sake.

Containing no extras, Disney’s “Vintage Mickey” is a simple affair, with nine fine shorts from the main mouse. Funnier and cuter than a lot of the talking-animal product put forth today, there are indeed reasons to admire this one-off, but it still smacks a little of repackaging purely for profit’s sake.

Old Mickey Mouse shorts have been available here and there on certain special editions, so the release says more about the studio’s ability to re-market its vault, this time as part of a trio of retro discs released for Disneyland’s 50th anniversary, than it does about the importance of the library itself.

Still, it’s hard not to appreciate the material. Some of the selected titles show off something notable: the introduction of Goofy (“Mickey’s Revue”), the first speaking Mickey (“The Karnaval Kid”) and, of course, the evolution of sound, which over the course of the disc’s entries seems more synchronized and more technically relevant. Original Mickey Mouse toon “Steamboat Willie” is also on board.

All of which makes “Vintage Mickey” immensely appealing. Just make sure you don’t already own these shorts on one of several other discs released by the studio over the years; they’ve all been out there.